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Kashmir almonds ready to hit markets

September 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Werwan (J-K), Sept 19 (ANI): With the almond harvesting reaching its final stages, the growers are gearing up to hit the local market in Kashmir.

Residents of Werwan village in Pulwama district, very famous for almonds, are busy harvesting the almond crops.

Eighty-five per cent people are doing the almond business. These days, they are very busy in harvesting.

“This year, the almonds were bigger and the kernel was also large. We hope that this year because of good quality, we will get good rates for our almonds,” said Jan Muhammad Lone, a grower.

With a comparatively good and timely rainfall this season, the state authorities are hoping for a better return for the growers.

“This year and even last year, the kernel developments were excellent. Compared to last year, this year we have received timely rainfall during the fruit development months of almonds that is May and June.

Therefore, the almond farmers are quite happy that their crop yields are good and they will receive good money of it,” said Manzoor Ahmed, a horticulture development officer.

Shalimar, Makdoon and Waris are some of the varieties of almonds that are grown in Kashmir. By Afzal Butt (ANI)

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“Blight” may play spoilsport for farmers’ hope of good crop in Punjab

September 1, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Amritsar, Aug.31 (ANI): Punjab farmers were full of optimism of harvesting a bumper crop of paddy despite a delayed monsoon, but now they fear crop damage due to attack of “Blight”, a bacterial disease.

Worried farmers allege that the agriculture department is not guiding them how to protect their crop from Blight. owever, at several places, the farmers, who had transplanted paddy, which was in good shape earlier, seem to be fighting a fast losing battle because of the widespread attack of “Blight”.

In various affected villages in the border districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur, the farmers today estimate nearly 50 percent of damage to paddy due to “Blight”, if it’s not controlled in time.

“The disease appeared as yellowish green stripes running from tip downwards and the affected leaf started drying from the margins. Since most of the farmers are unaware about the remedies so agriculture department should come forward to educate the farmers to tackle this problem,” said Jagdev Singh, one of the farmers.

Mangdev Singh, Sarpanch (village head) of Chiina Pati Village said, “Blight has dashed our hopes. We were expecting very good returns from paddy. In all the 500 acres of village paddy was transplanted. “Blight” attack has started in patches. If we fail to control, this could cause damage of al the crop here.

Singh said that they have contacted the department. Though the Agricultural Department accepts the damage to crops, it is not prepared to quantify it as yet.

In Amritsar district alone, of the nearly 183,000 hectares of land, Basmati was transplanted in about 90,000 hectares of land and in the rest of the farming land other variety of paddy was transplanted.

According to Gurdeep Singh, an Agriculture Development Officer, the disease has been noticed in all varieties of paddy grown in the areas of border belt.

“Since the disease develops more in high humid conditions, farmers should not allow stagnation of water in the fields.

Farmers should not spray pesticides to control the disease, as these are not effective against it,” said Gurdeep Singh. By Ravinder Singh Robin (ANI)

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Farm production could fall by 15-20 percent, Mukherjee

August 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Aug 27 (ANI): Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee predicted on Thursday that country’s farm production in the Kharif season could fall by 15 to 20 per cent due to poor monsoon.

Over 250 districts across 10 states, are facing drought situation due to poor monsoon.

Speaking at Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) Mukherjee said, “For impact of production on the Kharif crop, exact quantum will be known only when the harvesting starts. But from the picture of sowing, one can easily estimate that there is likelihood of a shortfall to the extent of 15-20 per cent.”

He added, “We have certain areas of concern like drought, inflationary pressure, government borrowing and its consequences on long term funding of corporate sector.”

Earlier Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had said the rice production could fall by 10 million tonnes in Kharif season.

During the last monsoon season country’s food basket was filled with 117.7 million tonnes of food grains. (ANI)

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DNA analysis key for solving mystery of King Tut’s origins

August 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, August 26 (ANI): Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt, has said that harvesting DNA from ancient mummies would be the key to solving the mystery surrounding Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen’s origins.

According to an article authored by Dr Hawass in the Asharq Alawsat Newspaper, he was in for a surprise when he entered the royal tomb of Tutankhamen with Professor Zakaria, and managed to get DNA samples.

Previously, there was hardly any hope in obtaining DNA samples from mummies, and Dr Hawass believed that he would prove to the world that mummies did not have any DNA suitable for analysis.

“For the first time, I saw that it is possible to harvest DNA from a mummy, and I believe that this will be the key to solving the mystery surrounding King Tutankhamen’s origins,” he wrote in the article.

Tutankhamen, the golden pharaoh, continues to bedazzle the entire world.

The discovery of King Tut’s tomb, which took place around 85 years ago, remains the most important archeological discovery of our time, not just in Egypt, but in the entire world.

This was the first time that a royal tomb of one of Egypt’s pharaohs was discovered untouched, and with the complete set of funeral furniture which was buried with the King.

In addition to this, there was also the treasures and jewelry which blinded anybody who set eyes on them.

“In an attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding King Tut’s family and discover the identity of his father, we find that there are some archeologists who strongly suggest that this is most probably King Akhenaton,” said Dr Hawass.

Akhenaton was the first Pharaoh to advocate monotheism, not just in ancient Egypt, but in the world. Others believe that Akhenaton’s father, King Amenhotep III is a more likely candidate for Tutankhamen’s father.

As for King Tut’s mother, “If we follow the speculation mentioned above with regards to Tutankhamen’s father, his mother is most likely either Queen Tiye, the consort of King Amenhotep III or the extremely famous, Queen Nefertiti, the consort of King Akhenaton,” said Dr Hawass.

These questions are enigmatic, and archeologists are having a hard time trying to answer them.

According to Dr Hawass, “We have embarked upon the quest to solve the mysteries surrounding King Tut thanks to the two DNA analysis laboratories that we have access to, as well as the availability of a CT-Scan machine, through which we are able to know every single detail about a mummy.” (ANI)

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Prehistoric dwelling unearthed at Isle of Man 3,000 years older than Stonehenge

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, July 14 (ANI): A prehistoric dwelling, which is 3,000 years older than Stonehenge, has been unearthed during construction of the runway extension at Isle of Man Airport.

According to Isle of Man newspapers, dating back an astonishing 8,000 years to the time when the first human settlers returned to the Isle of Man after the end of the Ice Age, it is probably the oldest dwelling ever found in the Island.

Featuring the foundations of a strongly-built shelter, filled and surrounded by thousands of pieces of worked flint, the charred remains of wood, and hundreds of hazelnut shells, the major archaeological find is certain to make headlines around the world.

It has been unearthed as fieldwork at Ronaldsway nears completion, with diggers due to finish excavating in the middle of this month and the project on schedule to be completed by the end of the year.

The site has already attracted interest from a BBC team filming the next series of Coast, and has recently been visited by Professor of Archaeology Peter Woodman, who excavated a similar, but less well-preserved, site eroding out of the cliffs just over 100 metres away in the 1980s.

“Archaeologists hesitate to call a structure of this kind a “house”, because the received wisdom is that 8,000 years ago people constantly moved through the landscape as nomads, gathering their food from the land, rather than staying put and farming and harvesting it,” said Manx National Heritage field archaeologist Andrew Johnson.

“But this building was constructed from substantial pieces of timber, and had a hearth for cooking and warmth,” he said.

“Its occupants lived here often, or long enough to leave behind over 12,000 pieces of worked flint together with the tools needed to flake them, and food debris in the form of hundreds of hazelnut shells,” he added.

The 8,000-year-old dwelling was found at the east end of the airport where a new taxiway extension is being built.

Radiocarbon dates have not yet been obtained but archaeologists confirm that it is ‘probably’ the oldest dwelling yet found on the Isle of Man.

According to Johnson, “This is by far the largest archaeological project to have been undertaken on the Island. The discoveries have been first-class and are sure to revise and improve understanding of prehistoric life in the Isle of Man.” (ANI)

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Coca-Cola delivery fleet goes green in Delhi

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, July 9 (IANS) The 85 Coca-Cola trucks in the city that deliver soft-drink bottles to your neighbourhood store will not belch black smoke any more. Their engines have been changed to use CNG, with the first three trucks of the new “green fleet” flagged off by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit here Wednesday evening.
On the occasion, Dikshit called upon all residents of the capital to use eco-friendly alternatives wherever and whenever they could in their daily lives, and lauded Coca-Cola for having changed its fleet over to the eco-friendly compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel.

“This takes forward the Delhi government’s efforts to encourage a transport system that is clean, effective and benefits the environment,” she said.

President and CEO of Coca-Cola India Atul Singh said businesses, the government and civil society had to come together at all levels to solve environmental problems and move towards a cleaner future.

“At Coca-Cola India, we have joined hands with the government, NGOs and local community to work on the issues of fresh water and climate protection. A lot of the good work on water and the environment has been done under the ‘Bhagidari’ (partnership) platform of the Delhi government.”

Ahmet Bozer, president of the Eurasia and Africa group of Coca-Cola, who was present at the flagging-off ceremony, lauded the Delhi government for taking a number of green initiatives, including the recent ban on plastic bags.

A company spokesperson said Coca-Cola India is also working on the goal of achieving a “net zero” balance with respect to groundwater usage by the end of the year. “By being a ‘net zero’ user of groundwater, the Coca-Cola system in India will create a rainwater harvesting potential equivalent to the groundwater used for its operations in India.”

The company has already installed over 400 rainwater harvesting structures in the country and has constructed and revived several ponds, check dams and wells around India in partnership with NGOs, government agencies and local communities.

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Monsoon woes continue in Uttar Pradesh

July 4, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Madna (Uttar Pradesh), July 4 (ANI): Delay in Monsoon in Uttar Pradesh, is upsetting villagers and farmers of Madna village, as they are going through a tough time as the fields in the region have almost dried up.

Harvesting was supposed to start by June 15 but with the delay in monsoons, the whole schedule went haywire.

“We haven’t received any rainfall since last monsoon. We received light rainfall some 7-8 days ago but it was of no benefit. The crops are completely dried up. We don’t plough the land now as the crops which have dried up are now finished,” said Kamlesh Singh, owner of a field.

The village head of Madna, Om Prakash fears that if the current situation continues, it may bring the villagers on the verge of death.

“Farmers are feeling helpless as our village is a flood prone village and many of the sugarcane crops got destroyed earlier because of it. This time we just had wheat crop yield and if there are no rains, then drought might occur and bring the farmers to the verge of death,” said Om Prakash.

Meanwhile, priests in Hyderabad performed fire rituals to appease the Hindu God of rain, Indra.

While incessant rains are lashing the western parts of the country disrupting normal life, it is playing truant in some southern parts of the country.

The monsoon is crucial for summer-sown (Kharif) crops and most of the country’s marginal farmers rely solely on the rains.

Lack of rains has created concern among people across the country. Thus almost all farmers are desperately seeking divine intervention. Parched farmlands present a grim situation. (ANI)

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Space and robotics technology used to improve forest planning and harvesting

June 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 30 (ANI): Space and robotics technology have been combined to develop an advanced Precision Forestry Positioning System, which allows more efficient forest planning and harvesting.

Invented by researchers at the Institute of Man-Machine-Interaction at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany, the system has helped catalogue 240 million single trees in the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia. he system combines remote-sensing maps from airplanes with satellite navigation data to map each tree in a forest.

This information is then used to plan which trees are to be cut, and when.

Finally, the plan is used on harvesters to identify which trees to cut. This helps make the harvesting more efficient, optimises overall wood production and reduces costs.

The system won the North Rhine-Westphalia Region’s 2008 European Satellite Navigation Competition, which was supported by ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office.

“We already have one harvester in operation with our system onboard. As the prototype works well, we are fairly close to the stage where we can go into production. Another 6 to 12 months, and we should be there,” said Professor Dr Jurgen Rossmann from RWTH Aachen University, who developed the system together with Petra Krahwinkler, Arno Bucken and Dr Michael Schluse.

The objective of the Precision Forestry Positioning System is to automate and optimize all the work involved in foresting, from the early planning of the forest to the final cutting of single trees, in order to be competitive on the worldwide market, and to overcome efficiency problems related to the forest ownership structure of the region.

“Precision farming is important in today’s agriculture, where farmers can save money with the use of satellite navigation systems,” explained Arno Bucken.

“However, the accuracy of the GPS navigation system, which is of 20 to 30 m, is not enough to identify single trees in a forest. Much higher accuracy is needed,” he added.

“We found a solution to this problem, which increases the accuracy to 50 cm, by using GPS as the initial reference position, and then taking remote-sensing data to identify the single trees in the forest,” he explained.

To help the planning, a virtual computer-based forest has been developed with all trees being identified by their location, based on the GPS and remote-sensing data.
In addition, a fourth dimension, ‘time’, has been added, and is of the utmost importance for this system.

“All trees are not only known by their geo-coordinates, but they are also time-stamped, and all measurement data are archived.

This makes it possible to see ‘how trees grow’, as well as look back to learn from the past,” said Rossmann. (ANI)

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Blood cells can be reprogrammed to act as embryonic stem cells

April 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 21 (ANI): Embryonic stem cells have long been coveted for their potential to treat a multitude of diseases. Now, researchers have successfully reprogrammed cells found in circulating blood into cells that are molecularly and functionally indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.

The new study may provide a readily accessible source of stem cells and an alternative to harvesting embryonic stem cells.

“Our findings provide the first proof that cells from human blood can morph into stem cells,” said senior study author Dr George Q. Daley, an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children’s Hospital, Boston.

“Making pluripotent stem cells from blood, which is one of the easiest tissues to obtain, provides an easy strategy for generating patient-specific stem cells that are valuable research tools and may one day be used to treat a number of diseases,” he added.

To produce the new stem cells called pluripotent (iPS), the researchers collected the blood from a 26-year-old male donor.

From the blood sample, they isolated CD34+ cells, a type of stem cell that produces only blood cells, and cultured them in growth factors for six days to increase their number.

During the culture, the scientists infected the CD34+ cells with viruses carrying reprogramming factors, genes normally expressed in embryonic stem cells that can reset the blood cells to an embryonic state.

Colonies of cells exhibiting physical characteristics similar to embryonic stem (ES) cells appeared about two weeks after the procedure.

In further studies, the iPS cells readily developed into clusters of cells called embryoid bodies from which cells of virtually any type can develop.

“Not only has this work identified a new programmable cell type, but the cells are easy to obtain and analyze in many research laboratories and bone marrow transplantation centers around the world,” said Dr Grover C. Bagby, Professor of Medicine and Molecular and Medical Genetics at Oregon Health and Science University.

The study appears online in journal Blood. (ANI)

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Regional party candidate visits agriculture fields to woo farmers

April 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Lucknow, Apr 18 (ANI): Jaipal Pathik, a member of Rashtravadi (Nationalist) Communist Party (RCP) has found a unique way to campaign in his constituency, Mohanlal Ganj in Uttar Pradesh.

Considering that the farmers and their families are busy in fields and nobody is present at their homes in the villages, Pathik makes a round of the agricultural fields to interact with the farmers and solicit their votes.

Pathik says that he has realized that talking to the farmers while they are engaged in harvesting or tilling the lands is the best option for campaigning in his constituency. It also shows how each and every vote is counted and respected by the political party.

“Most of people are engaged in agriculture, people are busy in fields. So we are going to fields to meet people. When they are in need they come to us. But now we want votes, so we are going to them in fields.”

“In this way their work is also not hampered and we are also able to speak to them and able to convince them at their fields by explaining to them our viewpoints,” noted Jaipal Pathik.

With the election fever in India touching the high pitch, leaders of various political parties are adopting all possible means to woo the voters.

The elections for the 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh are being held in five phases between April 16 and May 13.

The first phase of the polls was conducted on April 16.

The outcome of the elections will be declared on May 16. (ANI)

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Forests could become source of warming: report

April 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The world’s forests are at risk of becoming a source of planet-warming emissions instead of soaking them up like a sponge unless greenhouse gases are controlled, scientists said.

Deforestation emits 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide when people cut and burn trees, but standing forests soak up 25 percent of the emissions.

If the Earth heats up 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees F) or more, evaporation from the additional heat would lead to severe droughts and heat waves that could kill wide swaths of trees in the tropics of Africa, southern Asia and South America. And emissions from the rotting trees would make forests a source of global warming.

“If temperatures are growing at the current pace definitely this would happen at the end of this century or before,” said Risto Seppala, chair of a report by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, a nonprofit network of scientists.

The IUFRO will present the report to the U.N.’s Forum on Forests in New York next week.

Not all areas of the world would suffer immediately and pine forests in northern parts of the world could benefit at first.

“In the beginning it would mean some very positive consequences,” for boreal forests such as those found in Northern Europe and Canada, said Seppala by telephone from his home in Finland north of the Arctic Circle. He said timber and paper industries in the North could prosper as warmer weather pushes growth of spruce and other trees.

Even forests found in more temperate parts of the world, such as the United States and Western Europe, could grow faster at first.

“Those who live in industrialized countries in the Northern Hemisphere won’t suffer too much at first,” he said.

People in many developing countries with forests tend to rely more on forests for food, clean water and other basic needs.

But eventually tree pests and parasites that until now have not appeared much in forests in colder parts of the world are likely to spread north as temperatures warm, the report said.

An example of pests already moving to the North is the pine beetle, which has devastated large parts of forests in British Columbia over the past decade and has moved into the province of Alberta. The pest can be killed by periods of extreme cold, but the 2007-2008 winter did not kill off the insects in Alberta.

Much depends on exactly how much temperatures will warm. A Reuters poll earlier this month of scientists showed that global warming is like to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise above pre-industrial levels seen by many countries as the maximum to avoid the worst of rising sea levels, floods, droughts and heat waves. Temperatures have already risen 0.7 Celsius.

Steps can be taken to protect forests and help them adapt to warmer temperatures, such as sustainable harvesting, the IUFRO report said. Perhaps even more important is cutting global emissions of greenhouse gases, said Seppala.

(Editing by Christian Wiessner)

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Border security increased with the start of wheat harvesting in Punjab

April 16, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Abohar, Apr 16 (ANI): The Border Security Force (BSF) has increased patrolling near the India-Pakistan border in Abohar of Punjab with the start of wheat harvesting.

The step has been taken to keep a check on illegal trespassing across the India-Pakistan border.

Every year during the harvesting season, the security is increased in the border areas, as the farmers have to go across the fence to get their produce and, in such a situation illegal trespassing is feared.

The BSF personnel met the farmers on April 10 and gave them necessary instructions. The farmers have been asked to carry their identity cards and also carry the cards for their machines like threshers.

The farmers are comfortable with these measures as their security is also ensured by the BSF.

“The BSF is quite helpful. Pakistan is in a bad condition. Their farmers also harvest at the same time. The BSF has taken full responsibility for our security. We feel very secure because of them,” said Lakhbir Singh, a farmer.

The BSF soldiers accompany the farmers on their fields that are near the fence and are specially manned.

The farmers who go across the fence are frisked, so is their produce and the bullock carts. Even the soldiers who go across the fence with them are frisked.

The BSF personnel believe that there could be anti-social elements trying to cross the border illegally, which needs to be kept in check.

“The condition in the neighbouring country is not that good. Hence, we have increased the security for the farmers who have to go across the fence to get their produce. We have increased patrolling and ensured whatever other measures could be taken to ensure security.” said Sukhjinder Singh, a BSF official.

The farmers are encouraged to thresh the wheat the same day, as it is cut and not pile and bundle them. The troops have been alerted so as to curb illegal trespassing. By Avtar Singh Gill (ANI)

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Sikhs from India arrive in Lahore to celebrate Baisakhi

April 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

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Sikhs from India arrive in Lahore to celebrate Baisakhi
Press Trust of India
Saturday, April 11, 2009, (Lahore)
Hundreds of Sikh pilgrims from India arrived here on Saturday to participate in Baisakhi celebrations during which they will also visit the birthplace of founder of their faith Guru Nanak at Nankana Sahib.

Sikhs arrived in this eastern Pakistani city to participate in Baisakhi celebrations marking the end of the wheat harvesting season at several holy sites.

A total of 180 Sikhs from India arrived in Lahore in the first of several special trains, Evacuee Trust Property Board media manager Jacolin Tressler said. Indian authorities had informed the Board that another 1,500 Sikhs were on their way in more special trains, she said.

During their nine-day stay in Pakistan, the Sikhs will visit Gurdwara Janamsthan at Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, Gurdwara Saccha Soda in Farooqabad and Gurdwara Rohri Sahib in Aimanabad. They will leave for India on April 20.

Officials of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Evacuee Trust Property Board, which is responsible for maintaining Sikh shrines, greeted the Sikh yatris or pilgrims at the border.

Several pilgrims crossed the border barefoot as a mark of respect for the land where Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, was born. Banners with messages of peace and welcome greeted the pilgrims.

The leaders of different ‘jathas’ or delegations stressed the need for people-to-people contacts and early resumption of the peace dialogue between Indian and Pakistan.

Soon after their arrival, the pilgrims left for Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hasanabdal, where the main festival is to be held from Monday. The pilgrims are being guarded by police and paramilitary Pakistan Rangers.

The Pakistan government has for the first time deployed Pakistan Rangers to provide security to the Indian pilgrims because of a series of terror attacks across the country.

Besides Sikhs from India, some 1,000 pilgrims are expected to arrive from Europe, the Middle East, the US, Canada and Afghanistan. A large number of local Sikhs and Hindus will also participate in the festival.

Last year, over 4,000 Sikhs from India had attended the festival but the figure is lower this year due to tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

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Sikhs arrive in Lahore for Baisakhi festival

April 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Lahore, April 11 (IANS) A large number of Sikhs arrived here Saturday to take part in the Baisakhi festival, Geo TV reported.

According to the report, the first special train carrying 290 Sikhs arrived at Wagah railway station Saturday morning.

Four such trains will bring about three thousand pilgrims from around the world, including India, to the Pakistani city to celebrate the Baisakhi festival Monday, which marks the end of the wheat harvesting season.

Keeping in view the recent terrorist attacks across the country, Pakistani authorities have taken strict security measures to ensure the safety of the pilgrims.

For the first time, paramilitary Pakistan Rangers have been deployed for the security arrangements.

More than 4,000 Sikhs from around the world had visited Lahore last year to participate the celebrations.

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Snow, rains wash off Himachal farmers’ hopes

April 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Shimla, April 9 (IANS) Moderate to heavy snowfall and rain at many places in Himachal Pradesh Thursday triggered fresh worries for the farmers in the state.

‘Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district had 25 centimetres snow during the past 24 hours, while the Rohtang Pass in Kullu district is still receiving snow,’ Manmohan Singh, director of the meteorological office in Shimla, told IANS.

‘The entire tribal belt in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti and Chamba district witnessed moderate to heavy snowfall during the past 24 hours,’ he said.

Mid hills in the state received moderate to heavy rain, causing worries for the wheat growers.

The maximum rain was recorded in popular tourist spot Kasauli (39 mm) followed by Dharamsala (36 mm), Jogindernagar (28 mm), Mandi (21 mm), Shimla (20 mm) and Solan (15 mm).

Sanjay Kumar, a scientist with the National Wheat Research Centre here, said: ‘Earlier, a long dry spell affected the wheat crop in the lower hills. Now, heavy rain accompanied with hailstorm and high velocity winds is flattening the ripe wheat crop.’

He said as per preliminary estimates, the yield of the wheat this year is expected to fall 20-30 percent due to hostile weather at the time of harvesting.

Agriculture is the main occupation of the people in Himachal Pradesh, providing direct employment to 69 percent of the total workers in the state.

About 81 percent of the total cultivated area in the state is rainfed. Rice, wheat and maize are the important cereal crops.

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Voila, drought city has guests: Rain, bumper crops

April 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

THE RAIN gods have beaten politicians this year in drought-prone Bundelkhand. A bumper monsoon – the first in 10 years – has led to a bumper crop.

And election time is also harvesting season in the region’s seven impoverished, parched districts. “We’ll think about the elections later,” says Ramakant Patel, (43) overseeing workers on his 70-acre farm in Gadhar village in the Jalaun district, 200 kilometres south-west of the state capital of Lucknow.

“Anyway, what does it matter? Year after year we pleaded for better irrigation, for some help when our brothers were committing suicide,” he says. “Now God has come to our rescue, why should we care about the politicians?” Impoverished Bundelkhand – all seven districts are listed among the poorest in the country – has suffered severe drought for five years.

There are only the most basic irrigation facilities in the region, with the odd canals full of debris and poorly maintained. So when the rains stayed away, crops failed, indebtedness grew and farmers began committing suicide.

Some died of starvation. There is no official record of how many because the Bahujan Samaj Party state government responded by denying the deaths – and handing out relief cheques of Rs 600 to Rs 800 to the families left behind.

The village square is deserted; there are no farmers lounging, talking about the weather – or politics. In fact, there is no sign of the approaching national election.

No banners or posters, no public meetings. Even the politicians are waiting for the harvesting season to end.

They know no one will listen while the frenzy continues. “Yes, we will vote,” says Patel.

“Voting has become a ritual in our country. But it doesn’t really matter who comes to power, does it? They are all the same.

” The rage has built up over the years. In 2007, 90 per cent of the land in Bundelkhand was left unsown because the farmers had not even recovered the cost of the seeds.

The following year, per capita income for the region’s 1.2 crore people dipped to Rs 18,597 per annum, less than half the national average. But a good monsoon last year has changed everything, at least for the time being.

Giant harvesting machines – an unusual sight in Bundelkhand – are rolling in from Punjab. There are celebrations in the villages as the harvesting machines rattle across the fields, disgorging grain by the tonne in the larger farms.

The small farmers are frantically busy with their sickles, stashing away the yield before joining the teeming labourers in the bigger fields. There was such impatience to get at the wheat that the villagers even bypassed the traditional harvest festival in mid-March.

“When you have gold in your fields after a gap of so many years, it is impossible to keep the sickles waiting,” says Ramsingh Rajput (40), a farmer with 40 acres in Jalaun. “We feel like a woman who is blessed with a child after years of prayers.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: acre, Acre Farm, annum, average, Bahujan, bahujan samaj party, bumper, bumper crop, Bumper Crops, Bundelkhand, Canals, capita, capital, cent, child, city, committing suicide, cost, country, crop, crore, debris, district, drought, Election, election time, everything, fact, farm, farmer, festival, frenzy, Gadhar, gap, god, gold, Government, grain, harvest, harvesting, help, impatience, impoverished, income, indebtedness, irrigation, irrigation facilities, Jalaun, kilometres, land, Lucknow, March, mid, Monsoon, national election, official, party, patel, public meetings, Punjab, rage, rain, rain gods, Rajput, ramakant, Ramsingh, record, region, relief, rescue, ritual, Rs 800, Samaj, season, sight, sign, square, starvation, state, suicide, time, tonne, unsown, village, Voila, voting, weather, wheat, woman, year, yield

Crucial ‘element’ may decide this MP’s fate

April 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) A Congress MP from Delhi, which is usually water starved in summer, is thinking out of the box and hoping it will translate into votes in the Lok Sabha polls.

Krishna Tirath is contesting from Northwest Delhi, reserved for candidates from the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes community. But instead of seeking caste-based votes, she wants to motivate voters on issues like water harvesting.

Tirath said she would concentrate on things that matter to people ‘like the status of women, needs of labourers and water’.

‘A water tank in my constituency is lying unused. If water is harvested then the groundwater problems can be tackled. Water is going to be one of my poll issues,’ she said.

Perhaps the crucial element, ‘water’, will decide her fate.

Filed Under: International News Tagged With: April, box, caste, castes, community, Congress, constituency, Delhi, element, Element Water, fate, groundwater, Groundwater Problems, harvesting, IANS, krishna, labourers, lok, lok sabha polls, matter, mp, New Delhi, northwest, Northwest Delhi, poll, sabha, scheduled, status, Status Of Women, summer, tank, Things That Matter, Thinking Out Of The Box, Tirath, Tribes, Tribes Community, water, water harvesting, Water Tank

Loch Ness boulder may have been used as guide for crop sowing and harvesting 5000 yrs ago

March 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 28 (ANI): An amateur archaeologist has suggested that a giant boulder on a hill overlooking Loch Ness, a Scottish lake, was used as a guide for crop sowing and harvesting by residents of the Great Glen more than 5000 years ago.

According to a report in The Inverness Courier, John Forsyth, the archaeologist in question, is convinced that the five-meter wide rock was intentionally placed there by early man.

Forsyth said that the boulder was positioned and sculpted so people could use it as a marker against the sun to signal when their crops should be planted in spring and harvested in autumn.

He believes a community lived to the east of the boulder, which is between Creag Dhearg and Meall Fuar-Mhonaidh, and used the setting of the sun to establish the spring and autumn equinoxes – when day and night is roughly the same length.

As part of his research, Forsyth used a global positioning system to locate another rock behind his home, which lies directly east of the boulder and has the same latitude, suggesting an alignment that he thinks is deliberate.

“I’m very confident it’s from that time because the boulder is firmly embedded in peat and there is lichen on its surface,” he said.

How the people of the time managed to put the boulder there is another question, admitted Forsyth, who is confident of his findings, despite another school of thought that markers were also used by man in an attempt to find out more about the sun, moon and stars.

According to Highland Council archaeologist Kirsty Cameron, “People who were living in that time had a very good use of astronomy.”

“We encourage people to contact us about sites of possible interest but establishing a time for this is hard to prove and because it’s a stone, it can’t be excavated. I would be keen to find out more about it,” she said.

Forsyth believes the boulder was last moved at around the same time as the Callanish Standing Stones on Lewis and the structures at Stonehenge were erected. (ANI)

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Climate change may ‘supercharge’ plant growth

February 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, Feb 25 (ANI): In a new study, it has been suggested that climate change might supercharge plant growth, not just because temperatures will be warmer, but because temperatures will be more variable.

According to a report in Discovery News, the research indicated that as deeply frozen winters give way to more cycles of freezing and thawing, certain plants will become more productive.

This is the first study to consider the link, though not all plants will benefit and those that do might suffer in other ways.

“These findings illustrate that climate change will provide many surprising effects in ecosystems,” said lead researcher Juergen Kreyling, of the University of Bayreuth in Germany.

“Freeze-thaw cycles are just one phenomenon that is not yet understood but is rapidly changing,” Kreyling added.

Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), indicate that many places with traditionally cold winters will begin to flirt more frequently with the freezing point as the climate heats up.

For the research, the researchers planted several species of common grasses and herbs in 30 plots on the outskirts of Bayreuth, where average January temperatures usually hover around negative one degree Celsius (30 degrees F).

Each plot contained 100 individual plants and a buried heating wire that could artificially thaw the soil.

When temperatures dropped below freezing and stayed there for 48 hours, the team turned on the wires in half of the plots.

Two days later, they allowed the soil in these plots to freeze again. Over the course of the winter, the technique added five extra freeze-thaw cycles to the three that occurred naturally.

After harvesting, drying, and weighing the plants the following summer, measurements showed that heated plots contained 10 percent more biomass above ground than unheated plots did.

The researchers speculated that thawing and refreezing increases microbial activity and breaks up the soil, making plants more productive.

“Winter is a time during which the plants were proposed to do nothing,” Kreyling said. “It is astonishing that they seem to be able to take up nutrients that become available during the freeze-thaw events,” he added.

According to Hugh Henry, a plant ecologist at the University of Western Ontario, “This indicates that changes in climate and more extreme climate events could potentially have fairly large effects on nutrient availability and the way plants grow.” (ANI)

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Most wars occur in Earth’s richest biological regions, reveals study

February 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 21 (ANI): A new study has found that more than 80 percent of the world’s major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth.

Titled “Warfare in Biodiversity Hotspots,” the study by leading international conservation scientists compared major conflict zones with the Earth’s 34 biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International (CI).

The hotspots are considered top conservation priorities because they contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened.

“This astounding conclusion – that the richest storehouses of life on Earth are also the regions of the most human conflict – tells us that these areas are essential for both biodiversity conservation and human well-being,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and an author of the study.

“Millions of the world’s poorest people live in hotspots and depend on healthy ecosystems for their survival, so there is a moral obligation – as well as political and social responsibility – to protect these places and all the resources and services they provide,” he added.

The study found that more than 90 percent of major armed conflicts – defined as those resulting in more than 1,000 deaths – occurred in countries that contain one of the 34 biodiversity hotspots, while 81 percent took place within specific hotspots.

A total of 23 hotspots experienced warfare over the half-century studied.

Examples of the nature-conflict connection include the Vietnam War, when poisonous Agent Orange destroyed forest cover and coastal mangroves, and timber harvesting that funded war chests in Liberia, Cambodia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In those and countless other cases, the collateral damage of war harmed both the biological wealth of the region and the ability of people to live off of it.

In addition, war refugees must hunt, gather firewood or build encampments to survive, increasing the pressure on local resources.

More weapons means increased hunting for bush meat and widespread poaching that can decimate wildlife populations.

“The consequences extend far beyond the actual fighting,” said lead author Thor Hanson of the University of Idaho.

“War preparations and lingering post-conflict activities also have important implications for biodiversity hotspots and the people who live there,” he added.

“The fact that so many conflicts have occurred in areas of high biodiversity loss and natural resource degradation warrants much further investigation as to the underlying causes, and strongly highlights the importance of these areas for global security,” Mittermeier said. (ANI)

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